Crossover
Appeal: Kendall's Mix of Words, Music

by Joan Anderman

Dennis
Lehane, the celebrated young mystery writer, knows from literary readings:
the worn tweed, the gingerly sipped merlot, the median age that usually
inspires a last-minute decision not to read the scene with 15 F-words.

But
there was this one night, years ago in a dark pub in a low-rent neighborhood
in London, Lehane recalls. Busted glass littered the floor. Scary characters
were drinking and yelling. Lehane stepped up to the mike.

"Suddenly,
everyone was zippered. I read. I wasn't preaching to the choir. I walked
away and said, 'This is the single greatest reading I've ever done.'"

Which
is why Lehane, a Boston native, and a couple of dozen other local literary
luminaries  including Jayne Anne Phillips, Tom Perotta, and Andre
Dubus III  were variously psyched, thrilled, and blown away to hear
about Earfull, a weekly series debuting at Cambridge's Kendall Cafe Tuesday
that combines literary readings and unplugged rock music performances.

Galleries
and collectives on the adventurous fringes of the arts community have
been mixing mediums for years, exploring fusions of the aural, visual,
and interactive arts. But the mainstream tends to package and consume
its art in nice, neat market niches. There's not a lot of demographic
crossover between the hipsters who hang at the Kendall and the erudite
book-lovers who frequent readings. And that's exactly the point, says
Tim Huggins, proprietor of Newtonville Books, who dreamed up the idea
for Earfull with rock musician and writer Jen Trynin.

"I've
been trying to bring Jen into the book world, and in return she's been
trying to make me cooler," explains Huggins, who is noted on the
local book scene for his easygoing manner, his ever-present sandals, and
his Books-and-Brew series  the first step in Huggins's mission to
lure a new young audience to the world of book readings. "Through
our friendship, we realized there are a lot of avid readers out there,
people who would go to music shows, who find the idea of a reading stifling.
Young people just don't go. I'm 33, and I'm by far the youngest one going.
So we're having it in a bar."

For Trynin,
a self-described "secret writer" from an early age, making the
move from major-label recording artist to author gave her a unique perspective
on the disparity, but more important the similarities, between the two
scenes.

"Songs
get so much attention, but stories don't," says Trynin, who is finishing
a collection of short fiction; she'll read on Oct. 23 from a work in progress
based on her experiences in the music industry. "I think a lot of
my freakazoid music friends are wondering, 'Is this like school?' If they
knew, if they gave it a chance, they would see the similarities between
a pop song and a story. The rhythms, and the forms, have so much in common."

Trynin's
husband, Mike Denneen, and Jon Lupfer, co-owners of Boston's Q Division
Records, were intrigued enough to collaborate on the series, which Lupfer
calls "Chicken Soup for the Soul Train." Between Q's roster
of artists and Trynin's connections in the local rock community, a who's
who of Boston talent was enlisted to take the stage with authors on six
consecutive Tuesdays  among them Bill Janovitz (from Buffalo Tom),
Tanya Donelly (formerly of Throwing Muses and Belly) Jules Verdone, Chris
Brokaw, Kay Hanley, and Twinemen, a new trio composed of Laurie Sargent
and Morphine's Dana Colley and Billy Conway.

Most nights
will feature two writers  one established and one emerging 
and two musicians. While there was some thought given to matching musical
and literary personalities, the programming was actually based more on
a mutual appreciation society that surfaced as Huggins and Trynin began
talking to artists about scheduling. Huggins asked Lehane  a huge
music fan who says he will decide 35 seconds before he goes on whether
to read from "Mystic River" or his next novel, "Missing
Delores"  if he had a preference. (Yes: the Sheila Divine).
Brokaw, formerly of the indie-rock band Come, requested Oct. 30 
not because it fit into his busy schedule but so that he could be on a
bill with one of his favorite writers, Jayne Anne Phillips. Earlier this
week, Elizabeth Searle, who will read from her new collection "Celebrities
in Disgrace," bought a CD by singer/songwriter Jules Verdone, who
plays the same night.

"I
think I emulate the style of musicians," says Searle. "I like
the idea of turning down the lights, moving around the stage, bringing
in drinks. I'm going to read a scene from the title novella where these
people are acting out the Nancy Kerrigan knee attack for a video, and
things turn serious and sexual. I love doing erotic scenes at readings."

The plan,
says Trynin, is to alternate sets of words and music: author, musician,
author, musician. But drummer Conway, who has provided improvised soundtracks
for film and spoken-word performances, is not at all convinced that the
evenings will go according to plan. "You never know when a jam might
erupt. That's just how musicians function. It has the potential to have
a really potent force."

Potent indeed,
agrees Huggins, if it has the power to lure a new audience into the literary-readings
fold. "If we're able to pull this off, it opens up a whole new venue,
and a whole new market," he says.

Trynin takes
it a little more personally. "Frankly, if I'm going into writing,
it can't be drab," she says. "I'm used to flailing and cursing.
I really hope this works."